The New Cemetery () is a cemetery complex in Belgrade, Serbia, with a distinct history. It is located in Ruzveltova street in Zvezdara municipality. The cemetery was built in 1886 as the third Christian cemetery in Belgrade and as the first architecturally and urbanistically planned cemetery in Serbia.
In addition to graves of ordinary citizens, the cemetery complex also includes special sections: military graves from Serbian-Ottoman War (1876–1877), Serbo-Bulgarian War, Balkan Wars and World Wars, the Alley of the Greats and the Alley of Distinguished Citizens, where some of the most important persons in the history of Serbia are buried. Two Jewish cemeteries (a Sephardic and an Ashkenazi one) are located adjacent to the New Cemetery, but are administrated separately.
Location The cemetery is located along the Ruzveltova (official seat, at No. 50) and Mije Kovačevića streets, which divide it in two sections, left or western, which is in the municipality of Palilula and right or eastern, which is in the municipality of Zvezdara. Larger, eastern section is bordered by the streets of Mije Kovačevića on the north, Severni bulevar on the east and Svetog Nikole on the south. North of this section are the neighborhoods of Bogoslovija and Stara Karaburma, Zvezdara II is on the east, while Slavujev Venac and Bulbulder are on the south. Smaller, western section is marked by the streets Čarlija Čaplina (northeast) and Preradovićeva (southwest). It is situated next to the neighborhood of Hadžipopovac.
History The first burials on the cemeteries that still exist today in the Belgrade's territory, were held in Zemun, at the end of the 18th century. However, the New Cemetery was the first which has been planned and projected specifically for this purpose, with all the infrastructure needed, so it is today considered to be the oldest of Belgrade's cemeteries. In 1886–2017 period, 340,000 people were buried.
As the city expanded, Belgrade's old cemetery at Tašmajdan became inadequate. On the one side, it became too small for the city's main graveyard. On the other, once projected to be on the outskirts of the city, as Belgrade grew, Tašmajdan practically became downtown and close to the Royal court. The first official initiative for the removal of the cemetery came in 1871 from Mihailo Jovanović, Metropolitan Bishop of Belgrade. As the city was in the financial crisis at the time and wasn't able to buy such a large lot for the new cemetery, mayor of Belgrade Vladan Đorđević donated a patch of his land to the city for the purpose of establishing a new cemetery. In the next decades, the area, including the graveyard itself was known as Vladanovac (after the mayor), but gradually was replaced with the name New Cemetery. Mayors Živko Karabiberović and Mijailo Bogićević also worked on the establishment of the cemetery. The cemetery was charted in the city plans in 1884 but the citizens originally disapproved the new location, as it was distant from downtown, so a horse-operated tram line was established, Terazije-New Cemetery. The adaptation of the lot was finished on 16 August 1886 and the first person was buried next day. It was Dragutin Dimić, son of the cemetery gardener Veljko Dimić. The graveyard originally covered , but by 2017 grew to . The reinterment of the remains from the Tašmajdan dragged on for the several decades, being finished only in 1927.
First memorial monument was built in 1907, when remains of the Serbian soldiers who died in wars against the Turks and Bulgarians in the 19th century were reinterred from the Tašmajdan. During the bombardment of Belgrade in the World War I, cemetery was damaged in 1915. In the Interbellum, seven military graveyards were also formed together with the Memorial Ossuary to the Defenders of Belgrade 1914–1918.
After 1945 Cemetery of Belgrade Liberators, for the soldiers who died in 1944, extension across the Ruzveltova street to the west, was built in 1954. In 1959, a memorial cemetery for all the fallen fighters of the World War II was built by the architects Bogdan Bogdanović and Svetislav Ličina. Ličina also projected the Alley of Distinguished Citizens in 1965. In 1963, the crematory was opened. Though the first initiative for the crematory to be built came in 1904 from the "Oganj" society, and Minister for Public Health Čedomir Mihajlović approved construction in 1928, due to the lack of space, funds and opposition of the public, it took decades to open one. It is on the spot where the old Ashkenazi chapel was located. In 1964, the first year the crematory was operational, there were only 6 cremations, 5 of which were organized for the foreign citizens.
By the 1983 decision of the National Assembly of Serbia, the New Cemetery was declared as the cultural monument of great importance. Since 2004 it is member of the Association of Significant Cemeteries of Europe and since 2018 of the European Cemeteries Route.
The Main (Eastern) portion
The main part of the complex, on the right side of the Ruzveltova street, consists of a small Ashkenazi Jewish cemetery and much larger Christian cemetery. The Christian cemetery contains graves of ordinary citizens, several military graveyards, and four memorial sections containing the graves of important persons: the Arcades, the Alley of the Greats, the Alley of Distinguished Citizens, and the Alley of People's Heroes.
Among the headstones, there are 1,597 which are works of art by 130 Serbian sculptors, thus the cemetery is considered as the "museum in the open". Artists who contributed to this "museum" with their works include Ivan Meštrović, Đorđe Jovanović, Toma Rosandić, Sreten Stojanović, , Nebojša Mitrić, Risto Stijović, Živojin Lukić, Simeon Roksandić, , Olga Jevrić, Oto Logo, Petar Ubavkić, Lojze Dolinar, Stevan Bodnarov and .
Some of the specific, important works include: A statue of the girl in the crinoline dress on the parcel of merchant and benefactor Joca Jovanović Šapčanin; work of Italian sculptor Achille Canessa. The Muses of literature and painting on the family tomb of Matija Ban, his daughter Poleksija Todorović and her husband Stevan Todorović. The oldest reliefs in the cemetery are done by Đorđe Jovanović for the tomb of Andra Nikolić. Some of the reliefs represent Nikolić's four younger children, who all died of diphtheria. A broken column was sculptured on the tomb itself, marking the death of Dušan, Nikolić's older son who survived through infancy but was killed in World War I, on the Suvobor mountain during the Battle of Kolubara in 1914.
Church of Saint Nicholas
The newly developed cemetery had no chapel or church, so by the endowment of Draginja and Stanojlo Petrović, a church dedicated to Saint Nicholas, projected by the architect Svetozar Ivačković was built in 1893. The iconostasis was painted by Stevan Todorović and his wife Poleksija. The frescoes are a work of Andrea Domenico, on the draft by Petar Ranosović. The Petrović couple is buried in the church's crypt, with their 5-year-old son Petar. name="muzej" name="proslost" name="Politika"
For a long time, the church also served for the parochial services, until the Church of Saint Lazar was built in the neighborhood of Bulbulder. In that period, weddings and baptisms were also performed in the church, while the public fairs were held in front of it.
Military graveyards The oldest memorial at Novo groblje complex is the Serbian soldiers' ossuary built in 1907 which contains remains of the soldiers of Serbian-Ottoman Wars (1876–1878) and Serbo-Bulgarian War (1885) that were transferred from Tašmajdan cemetery.New Cemetery , Turistički vodič kroz Beograd
Important part of the complex are the military graveyards with the remains of soldiers from the Balkan Wars and World War I. It contains remains of Serbian and other Allied soldiers, as well as Central Powers soldiers. Beside the Serbian ossuary (Memorial Ossuary to the Defenders of Belgrade), there are separate French, Russian, Italian, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian military graveyards.Vojnička Grojlja > Oltari sebičnih otadžbina, Vreme, 22 April 2004 (retrieved: 22 October 2009) The Russian Military Graveyard contains graves of over 3,000 Russian White émigrés who arrived to Yugoslavia after the 1917 Russian Revolution and the ensuing civil war. They include priests, soldiers and some important names in science and culture, who fled Bolshevik rule. At the edge of the Russian graveyard are the monumental "Russian Glory" memorial ossuary and the Iverskaya chapel. The Chapel was designed in 1931 by Valery Vladimirovich Stashevsky, a replica of the original chapel in Moscow which the Bolsheviks demolished that same year.
There is also a British (Commonwealth) graveyard from World War II. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission maintain the Commonwealth graves.Belgrade War Cemetery at the Commonwealth war graves commission web site The Alley of the People's Heroes is located around the Serbian ossuary. It contains graves of 312 persons, 118 of whom were the People's Heroes of Yugoslavia. The complex also includes graveyards of the victims of 1941 and 1944 Bombings of Belgrade, and the Alley of Executed Patriots 1941–1944.
Arcades
Though this section is next to the wall, it was originally envisioned as a series of arches ("arcades"). Eventually, arcades remained only as ornamental and architectural part of the outer wall of the cemetery. The section was built in 1926–1927, concurrently with the Alley of the Greats. It contains tombs of important public figures and wealthier citizens, as the lots in this section were not given to the commoners. Here are the graves of Milenko Vesnić (1863–1921), politician and diplomat, Nikola Pašić (1844–1926), politician, Janko Vukotić (1866–1927), general and politician, Sreten Stojanović (1898–1960), sculptor, Svetlana Velmar-Janković (1933–2014), writer.
Alley of the Greats
Alley of the Greats () was created in the 19th century with a transfer of the remain of several important persons from the Tašmajdan Cemetery to the New Cemetery. As an architectural unit, it was formed in 1926–1927 as the first lot specifically designed for the nationally important people. It contains 25 tombs and 3 chapels with 113 buried people by 2017. Some of the people buried at the Alley of the Greats are:
Milan Kujundžić Aberdar (1842–1893), philosopher and politician Jovan Cvijić (1865–1927), geographerNovo groblje official site: Jovan Cvijić Kosta Hristić (1852–1927), diplomat and writerNovo groblje official site: Kosta Hristić Stevan Hristić (1885–1958), composerNovo groblje official site: Stevan Hristić Slobodan Jovanović (1869–1958), philosopher and politician Stevan Vladislav Kaćanski (1829–1890), poet Petar Kočić (1877–1916), writerNovo groblje official site: Petar Kočić Ilija Milosavljević Kolarac (1789–1878), donatorNovo groblje official site: Ilija Kolarac Milosavljević Živojin Mišić (1855–1921), fieldmarshal Branislav Nušić (1864–1938), comedy playwright Jovan Popović (1905–1952), writer and revolutionary Radomir Putnik (1847–1917), fieldmarshal Milunka Savić (1892–1973), female soldier Kornelije Stanković (1831–1865), composerNovo groblje official site: Kornelije Stanković Velimir Mihailo Teodorović (1849–1898), benefactor and out-of-wedlock son of Prince Mihailo Obrenović Dimitrije Tucović (1881–1914), socialist leader Miloš Vasić (1859–1935), general and weapons constructor
Kolarac, Kaćanski and Aberdar were reinterred from the old Tašmajdan cemetery. Jovanović was exhumed from his London grave and reinterred in 2011. Savić was reinterred from her family tomb on the cemetery in 2013, while the remains of Tucović were moved from the Slavija Square in December 2016, during the square's reconstruction. The three chapels belong to Teodorović, the family of Stevan Hristić and the .
Alley of Distinguished Citizens